You will have valid reasons for unleashing vigorous critiques in the coming week. For best results, however, I suggest that you dress them up in fine language. Your complaints will be more likely to have a cathartic effect if you make them witty and even a bit florid. To get in the right mood, spend some time with the Random Shakespeare Insult Generator. Here are a few, all lifted from the work of The Bard. (1) "Thou jarring motley-minded pignut!" (2) "Thou cockered beef-witted measle!" (3) "Thou unmuzzled dismal-dreaming scut!"

How much do you want to know about your destiny in the coming week? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week.

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The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. The physicist Werner Heisenberg declared that the universe is made of music, not of matter.

And we believe that if you habitually expose yourself to toxic stories and music, you could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it's impossible to become the gorgeous genius you were born to be.
That's why we implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales and tunes that inspire you to exercise your willpower for your highest good.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

"Before you can do something you must first be something," wrote Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. That's advice we can all profit from. Most of us have been guilty of trying to skips steps in reaching our goals, hoping to pull off feats we have not yet developed sufficient strength of character to master. For example, there's no way I could have been a good writer at age 19, since I had so little life experience to draw on, hadn't learned how to cultivate my perceptiveness, and didn't have the discipline to sit down and write every day. In the coming week, Taurus, think about whether there's a dream you cherish but have not yet earned the right to achieve. Then decide what you'll have to do to become more worthy.

Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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Six miles from Maui is a Hawaiian island that tourists never visit—Kaho'olawe. The U.S. Navy seized it in 1941 and used it as a target range for decades. After years of protests by Native Hawaiians, the Navy finally stopped bombing and began a clean-up campaign. In November, 2003, it formally turned control of the island over to the rightful owners.

"You can get a feel on Kaho'olawe of what it was like to live on Hawaii at the time of our ancestors," says Native Hawaiian Davianna McGregor. "We can practice our traditions there without it being a tourist attraction. It's one place we can go to be in communion with our natural life forces."
Each of us has a personal version of Kaho'olawe: a part of our psyche that has been stolen or colonized by hostile forces. To grow bolder in exploring pronoia, you'll need to take back yours.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Every year the National Grocers Association stages its own version of the Oscars. Among the honors it bestows is an award for Best Bagger. It goes to the person who displays the most élan while efficiently and speedily filling grocery bags with buyers' purchases. The social status accorded the winner may pale in comparison to, say, Hollywood's best film actress or baseball's most valuable player, but personally I'm just as impressed with it. In fact, I think everyone in the world should be the recipient of a prize that commemorates the one thing they do better than anyone else. It happens to be an excellent time for you to go after the unique trophy you deserve, Gemini. If no organization gives it to you, make it or buy it yourself.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny in the coming week, check out your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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"Whoever has, shall be given more and more," reads the Gospel of Matthew, "while whoever has nothing, even what he has will be taken away from him."

Pronoiac translation: Whatever you choose to focus your attention on, you will get more of it. If you often think of everything you lack and how sad you are that you don't have it, you will tend to receive abundant evidence of how true that is.

If, on the other hand, you dwell on the good things that make you feel grateful to be alive, they will probably multiply.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

During a solar eclipse, members of some indigenous tribes in South America used to shoot burning arrows toward the heavens in the belief that they would scare away the demon that was devouring the sun. I recommend that you try this, if only in your imagination. No, there won't be an actual eclipse happening in the literal sky in the coming week. But something like that has been going on in your psyche. It's time to fight back with burning arrows.

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life in the coming week? Listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on the riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.

But more than any other vision I've ever tested, pronoia describes the way the world actually is. It's wetter than water, stronger than death, and truer than the news. It smells like cedar smoke in early spring rain, and if you close your eyes right now, you can feel it shimmering like the aurora borealis in your organs and muscles. Its song is your blood's song.

Some people argue that life is strife and suffering is normal. Others swear we're born sinful and only heaven can provide us with the peace that passes understanding. But pronoia says that being alive on the rough green and brown earth is the highest honor and privilege. It's an invitation to work wonders and perform miracles that aren't possible in any nirvana, promised land, or afterlife.

I'm not exaggerating or indulging in poetic metaphor when I tell you that we are already living in paradise. Visualize it if you dare. The sweet stuff that quenches all of our longing is not far away in some other time and place. It's right here and right now.

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning knew the truth: "Earth's crammed with heaven."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

According to conventional measures of success, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is a successful man. His movie The Sixth Sense is one of the top 25 money-makers in history, and three of his other films have grossed more than $200 million apiece worldwide. And yet he places a supreme value on reverie. "My life is about finding time to dream," he has said. I urge you to make that your motto, Leo. The progress of your most practical ambitions later in 2006 will depend on whether or not you spend the next few weeks tapping into information that's available through fantasies, meditations, dreams, and other altered states.

What blessings will life bring you in the coming week? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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The novelist Willa Cather once said: "One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness. One only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere."

But I disagree with Willa Cather. I share the view of Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, who wrote the book, How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People. They say that the number one trait of happy people is a serious determination to be happy. In other words, they say bliss is not an accident that you stumble upon by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere. Bliss is a habit that you can cultivate. Which theory would you prefer to believe?

Here's what I say. Terence McKenna said it for me: "I believe reality is a marvelous joke staged for my edification and amusement, and everybody is working very hard to make me happy."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions," wrote pioneer psychologist Alfred Adler. If you have inflicted that danger on yourself too often in the past, Virgo, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to make amends. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, a series of really smart risks is lining up to greet you. May you approach them with just the right blend of daring and discernment.

Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks in the coming week? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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Try this meditation: Imagine that you are both the wood and the fire that consumes the wood. When you focus your awareness on the part of you that is the wood, you hurt; it's painful to feel your sense of solidity disintegrating. But as you shift your attention to the part of you that is the fire, you exult in the wild joy of liberation and power.

It may be tempting to visualize yourself more as the fire than the wood. But if you'd like to understand life's blessing in their fullness, you've got to be both wood and fire simultaneously.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Ancient Greeks called apricot juice the nectar of the gods. For centuries, Europeans regarded apricots as aphrodisiacs and symbols of fertility. According to old English folk tales, to dream of apricots portends good fortune. In the 21st century, however, demand for the fruit is waning. Since 1994, production has diminished by almost 50 percent in California, which grows most of America's crop. Is there one of your skills or products whose situation resembles the apricot's, Libra? Some fine offering you were born to provide but that the culture seems to be losing its need for? If so, meditate on whether it's time to revise your relationship with it--perhaps by reinventing or repackaging it.

Where do you want to go in the coming week? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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While you and I are together here:

Your favorite phrase is flux gusto

The colors of your soul are sable, vermilion, ivory, and jade

Your magic talisman is a thousand-year-old Joshua tree whose flowers blossom just one night each year and can only be pollinated by the yucca moth

Your holiest pain comes from your yearning to change yourself in the exact way you'd like the world around you to change

Your soil of destiny is peat moss

Your mythic symbol is a treasure chest dislodged from its hiding place
in the earth by a flood

Your lucky number is 13 to the 13th power

Your sweet spot is in between the true believers and the scoffing skeptics

A clutch of frog eggs from an unpolluted river is your auspicious hair-care product

The anonymous celebrity with whom you have most in common is the jester who followed Buddha around and kept him loose

The question that perks you up when your routine becomes too rote is this: What possesses the bar-tailed godwit to migrate annually from Alaska to New Zealand by hitching rides on gale-force winds?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Most modern religions propose that we need intermediaries--priests, priestesses, rabbis, imams, monks--to get connected to the divine source. In contrast, many ancient Gnostics believed that every person could be in charge of creating his or her own link to spirit. Indeed, anyone might contribute fresh insights and revelations to the body of ever-evolving spiritual truths. The equivalent today would be if the Bible were regarded as an unfinished text to which every Christian or Jew could add new content. This is a perfect astrological moment for you to try out this perspective, Scorpio: the do-it-yourself approach to creating your own religion. You now have the power to be your own priest, priestess, rabbi, imam, or monk.

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Material in the "Free Will Astrology" horoscopes may be too intense and controversial for some readers. It contains graphic scenes of peace, love, joy, passion, reverence, splendor, and understanding. Within these pages, there is a severe dearth of references to alcoholism, suicide, prostitution, bigotry, lawsuits, greed, explosions, child abuse, terrorism, embezzlement, plane crashes, extortion, medical malpractice, betrayal, armed robbery, heart disease, rape, arson, and torture. Therefore, you should proceed with caution if you are a jaded hipster who is suspicious of feeling healthy and happy. Ask yourself: "Am I ready to stop equating cynicism with insight? Do I dare take the risk that exposing myself to uplifting entertainment might dull my intelligence?" If you doubt your ability to handle relaxing breakthroughs, you should avoid reading the "Free Will Astrology" horoscopes.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

"If you give a person feedback you focus them for a day," says entrepreneur George Reavis. "If you teach them how to ask for feedback you focus them for a lifetime." I mention this, Sagittarius, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to act on his advice. You have the potential to become skilled at consistently getting the exact feedback you need--the kind of constructive, respectful critique that serves as an inspiring kick in the butt.

Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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DEFINITION: Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It's the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It's a mode of retraining your senses and intellect so you're able to perceive that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.

PROCEDURE: Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

In his biography Tallulah!: The Life and Times of a Leading Lady, Joel Lobenthal describes actress Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968) as a reckless hedonist given to exhibitionism and affairs with hundreds of lovers. He also hints that there was a karmic payback for her excesses. It came in the form of a lengthy hysterectomy that was a last-ditch attempt to save her from the ravages of an advanced case of gonorrhea, reducing her frame to a mere seventy pounds. Bankhead didn't see it as karmic payback, however. Afterwards she told her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!" Your own imminent comeuppance won't be even a tiny fraction of what Bankhead's was, Capricorn. But I hope that after it has been offered, you will thankfully say, "This has taught me a valuable lesson!"

No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge in the coming week if you tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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"The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is--it must be something you cannot possibly do." What is that task for you?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The group Reporters Without Borders evaluates how well the world's nations respect freedom of the press. Finland, Iceland, and the Netherlands are the top three, while North Korea, Cuba, and Burma are at the bottom. Canada is ranked tenth. The U.S. is 137th (of a total 167) in terms of the press freedom that it fosters outside of its own borders, although it's 44th in its own territory. In this spirit and in response to current astrological omens, I inventoried the freedom of expression you have carved out for yourself, Aquarius. I also appraised your skill at creating an environment in which other people feel free to express themselves to you. You're doing great in the first category--number one in the zodiac!--but you could use some work in the second. Now is a perfect time to work harder to extend to others the spaciousness you enjoy.

What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints about the week ahead, listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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With luck and persistence, you will be able to claim the rewards promised you at the beginning of time--not just any old beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, freedom, and justice, but rather exhilarating beauty that incites you to be true to yourself; crazy wisdom that immunizes you against the temptation to believe your ideals are ultimate truths; outrageous goodness that inspires you to experiment with boisterous empathy; generous freedom that keeps you alert for opportunities to share your wealth; insurrectionary love that endlessly transforms you; and a lust for justice that's leavened with a knack for comedy, keeping you honest as you work humbly to liberate everyone in the world from ignorance and suffering.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

According to my analysis of the astrological omens, pleasures that appeal to the adult in you may not rouse anywhere near the excitement they usually do in the coming weeks. The best use of your time might be to leap into your second childhood. You'd probably be wise to do things like making mud pies, rolling sideways down a grassy hill, getting your face painted, feeding a farm animal, going on a scavenger hunt, climbing trees, and creating a papier-maché monster mask.

Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead.

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Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. Through some magic you don’t fully understand, you’re still breathing and your heart is beating, even though you’ve been unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that’s just right for your body’s needs, as it was before you fell asleep.

You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered by nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions of years to perfect. The interesting gift of these vivid hues is furthermore made possible by an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, that continually detonates nuclear reactions in order to convert its body into light and heat and energy for your personal use.

You can walk! Your legs work wonderfully well. Your heart circulates your blood all the way down to replenish the energy of the muscles in your feet and calves and thighs, and when the blood has delivered its blessings, it finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed. This wondrous mystery recurs over and over again without stopping every hour of your life.

You can smell aromas and you can hear sounds and you can taste tastes, many of which are quite enjoyable. You can think! You can feel feelings and visualize images of things that don't even exist. You’re in possession of the extraordinary power of self-awareness. Do you realize how far-fetched that stupendous ability is? You not only know that you are you. You also know that you know that you know you are you.

Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body can be considered a sentient being in its own right, and they all act together as a community, performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration.

By some improbable series of coincidences or long-term divine plan, language has come into existence. Millions of people have collaborated for many centuries to cultivate a system for communication that you understand very well. Speaking and reading and writing give you great pleasure and a tremendous sense of potency.

Do you remember when you were born, by the way? It was a difficult miracle that involved many people who worked very hard on your behalf. No less miraculous is the fact that you have continued to grow since then, with millions of new cells being born within you all the time to replace the old ones that are dying. It's just like magic.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.